23 September 2009

One more prayer request

Allie is doing better - she is one week old and has had her first drop of mother's milk. Thank you for your prayers.

My friend's son, Ben is one year old. He is in Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. He has pneumonia an strep and is not responding well. He is on a ventilator.

Please pray for Ben and his parents, Mark and Emily. Those of you who are parents realize how traumatic this is for Mark and Emily.

20 September 2009

Breaking my Sunday rest for a special cause

I believe this is the third time that I have broken my self imposed Sunday rest rule. But, I do so to ask your prayers for the father-in-law of my high-school friend KD.

Borje is her husband's father. Borje is nearing the end of his mortal journey and this time is very difficult for his children. The family is gathering for an adieu (they are Swedes in Sweden).

Please remember Mike, and his brothers as they help their father transition from this life to the life to come.

When I think of the end of life, I think of the Swedish hymn (psalm) "Children of the Heavenly Father." This hymn was the hymn for funerals when I was growing up. No one in town was buried from our Swedish Lutheran Church without this hymn. Look it up on You-Tube or on the web with the English title.

Tryggare kan ingen vara,
Än Guds lilla barnaskara,
Stjärnan ej på himlafästet,
Fågeln ej i kända nästet.

Herren sina trogna vårdar,
Uti Sions helga gårdar,
Över dem Han sig förbarmar,
Bär dem uppå fadersarmar.

Ingen nöd och ingen lycka,
Skall utur Hans hand dem rycka,
Han vår vän för andra vänner,
Sina barns bekymmer känner.

Se Han räknar håren alla,
Som från deras huvud falla,
Han oss föder och oss kläder,
Under sorgen Han oss gläder.

Gläd dig då, du lilla skara,
Jakobs Gud skall dig bevara,
För Hans vilja måste alla,
Fiender till jorden falla.

Vad Han tar och vad Han giver,
Samme Fader Han förbliver,
Och Hans mål är blott det ena,
Barnets sanna väl allena.

Pentecost XVI / Trinity XV

Miserere mihi, Domine

(RCL) Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

    Introit: Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to Thee all the day; for Thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild, and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Thee. -- ( 85. 1). Bow down Thine ear to me, O Lord, and hear me; for I am needy and poor

    Collect:
    Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
    and ever. Amen.

    Gospel:
    Jesus left with his disciples and started through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know about it, because he was teaching the disciples that the Son of Man would be handed over to people who would kill him. But three days later he would rise to life. The disciples did not understand what Jesus meant, and they were afraid to ask. Jesus and his disciples went to his home in Capernaum. After they were inside the house, Jesus asked them, "What were you arguing about along the way?" They had been arguing about which one of them was the greatest, and so they did not answer. After Jesus sat down and told the twelve disciples to gather around him, he said, "If you want the place of honor, you must become a slave and serve others! Then Jesus had a child stand near him. He put his arm around the child and said, "When you welcome even a child because of me, you welcome me. And when you welcome me, you welcome the one who sent me."
Sometimes the expanse of centuries between when the scriptures were written and when we, in the twenty-first century, are reading them seems to disappear. The readings today that supposedly come from Wisdom and James couldn’t possibly have been written that long ago. They must have been written in our time – in our generation, or at least only as far back as our parents or grandparents. They’re too current – too modern – too right between our eyes, don’t you think?

This is true for James, especially. You don’t often hear people say that the letter from James is their favorite. Maybe it’s not used often enough, or maybe it makes us uncomfortable, but we must admit that James is nothing if not practical. James’ very practical outline of behaviors and exhortations on what one must do to live a Christian life is very, well, no nonsense. James really spoke out to his readers back then, but today’s bit of James should still give us a lot to think about. In fact, if it doesn’t, then the bumper sticker that should be speaking to us is the one that says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

Listen again to what James says: “Those conflicts and disputes among you … do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. You covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

That almost hurts to read out loud because it’s so true. Look at the world we live in. Many of us continue to ask why, in this day and age, the only way we seem to be able to deal with problems among the countries of the world is to arm mostly the poor and kill until someone gives up or one side has no one left standing.

But even closer to home, look at our own congregations. “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?” James writes. Where indeed? What is it about us church folks that makes it so much easier to exclude than include, when we should know better. What Christian can’t recite by heart the two great commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And the bumper sticker adds, “No exceptions.” What don’t we understand about what we can recite by heart?

And then, of course, we have to look at ourselves. It gets really uncomfortable when we read “Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Jesus says pretty much the same thing in the gospels – but “adulterers”? That seems a little harsh.

And we can wonder what’s so wrong with “the world.” The world, after all, is beautiful – it’s a gift from God, not something that should put us at enmity with God. But that’s not what Jesus and James were talking about when they used the word “world.” They were referring instead to the “operating system,” so to speak, of the world; the way we interact with each other, the systems we set up to run the world, our rules. That’s where we get into trouble. That’s where we let our conflicts and disputes, our cravings and selfish ambitions prevent us from truly living out those two great commandments that we all say we believe.

And then there’s that rather scary reading from Wisdom. “The ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death; considering him a friend, they made a covenant with him, because they are fit to belong to his company.”

Well, surely that’s not any of us: “ungodly … summoning death … belonging to his company.” That’s the stuff of a Stephen King novel, this personification of evil. So, we can comfortably read on until we get to verse 10:
“Let us oppress the poor man; let us not regard the grey hairs of the aged, let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.”

“The world as a whole is shaped by Wisdom’s guidance. … This ordering is a righteous one, inimical to exploitation and oppression. Sophia hates the ways of arrogance and evil but works to establish just governance on the earth.”
Like James, she talks about an orderliness in the world. She reminds us that Sophia (“Wisdom”) works to establish justice and righteousness.

Wisdom is a fascinating image. We use it to talk about the nature of God, we use it to describe the gift of understanding that we seek from God. Wisdom is personified as the most hospitable of women. Elizabeth Johnson describes this feminine aspect of wisdom:Women can’t leave the doing of justice and the spreading of the Good News to men, and vice versa. We’re all expected to share that work. So there is good news in today’s readings.

And of course, we only read one small bit of Wisdom this morning. If we’d read just a few more verses, we would have come to that most beautiful passage that’s often read at funerals:
“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace – their hope is full of immortality.”
That speaks of the dead, but it also speaks of us who still live in this world, especially if we believe in the communion of the saints as we say we do in the Creed. All of us – those who have gone before us and those of us still here – are connected. We’re all kin, all a part of the people of God.

So, to play with this passage a little: “All those who are righteous are in the hand of God. In the eyes of the foolish, the righteous may seem to be weak, to be useless; but they have peace. They have hope, and that hope is full of the promise of immortality.”

And isn’t that God’s promise? Isn’t that what we hope for finally, for union with God? We can experience that here as well as in the hereafter, and part of our ministry is to make sure that we welcome all our brothers and sisters on that journey.

These readings give us a lot to think about. This is just a start, and there’s good news all though it. Because even when we’re brought up short and challenged about how we’re living, and even when we’re at our most unlovable, there’s always the promise of God’s love for us.

Several chapters later in Wisdom we read:
“But you, our God, are kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy. For even if we sin we are yours.”
Thanks be to God!

-- The Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz is executive director of the Center for Ministry in Small Churches at the School of Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee, and assistant professor of Contextual Education. She is also publisher of "Tuesday Morning," a quarterly journal of ministry and liturgical preaching.